Point/Counterpoint: Speakers debate development of a bioeconomy

AMES, Iowa -- Ted Crosbie thinks corn has more than a decade as the
primary feedstock for biofuel production in the United States. G. David
Tilman would like to see a long-term switch to a mix of non-food crops
feeding the biofuels industry.

Both will make their points and counterpoints during the annual Biobased
Industry Outlook Conference Sept. 8-9 at Iowa State University. This year's
conference -- "Growing the Bioeconomy: From Foundational Science to
Sustainable Practice" -- will feature a morning-long session of prominent
speakers debating three major issues facing a growing bioeconomy that's
based on producing fuels, chemicals and other products from plants rather
than petroleum.

One segment will feature Crosbie and Tilman addressing the food versus fuel
debate. Should some corn be diverted from food production to fuel
production? Can corn ethanol give us enough new energy to matter? Does it
reduce or increase greenhouse gas levels? Are there economical alternatives
to producing fuel from corn? Can farmers produce enough grain or biomass
feedstocks to meet all the demand? What makes the most sense?

Crosbie, vice president of global plant breeding for Monsanto Co. and a
member of the board advising Iowa State's Plant Sciences Institute, said
corn-based biofuel has obvious benefits compared to current alternatives for
United States agriculture. Farmers know how to efficiently grow, harvest and
transport the crop and there are industrial-scale technologies to convert
the grain into ethanol.

Tilman, Regents Professor and McKnight Presidential Chair in Ecology at
the University of
Minnesota in the Twin Cities, countered that thorough
analyses show that these conversion technologies use so much energy and
release so much greenhouse gas that society is better off burning gasoline
rather than corn ethanol.

Crosbie also said plant science and production advancements will double
today's corn yields by 2030. That will mean there's more corn for food and
fuel production. And it could mean the best fields will produce enough grain
that marginal farmland could be set aside for prairie grasses and other
perennial biomass crops.

Tilman said the global demand for grains is likely to double or even
triple in the coming 50 years, and that any corn diverted to an inefficient
biofuel forces other nations to clear native ecosystems to grow more grain.
Land clearing releases so much greenhouse gas that across the globe corn
ethanol may release twice as much greenhouse gas as gasoline.

Tilman said that biofuels should be made from feedstocks that can be
grown on infertile and degraded lands no longer suitable for food crops if
biofuels are to provide much new energy and significant greenhouse gas
advantages. The large-scale conversion of food into liquid transportation
fuels will make the price of food equal to its energy value of about $120 a
barrel for oil. He said that will raise the price of food and harm the
poorest two billion people on earth.

Crosbie said the food vs. fuel debate often loses sight of the fact that
many perennial crops are also used to produce food and that corn is a very
flexible, multi-use crop. Growers can decide on a moment's notice whether to
use corn grain for livestock feed, in food processing or for ethanol
production. Likewise, they can decide in real time whether to use corn
stalks and leaves for livestock feed, in thermal or biochemical conversion
systems to produce various forms of energy or for cellulosic ethanol
production. No other crop has that potential and flexibility.

Crosbie also doesn't believe corn will be the only feedstock for biofuel
production.

"It's an 'and' equation," he said. "It's not corn grain or biomass. We
think we should research all of the possibilities. All we are saying is that
corn is clearly way ahead of alternative crops now and for the foreseeable
future in terms of food and feed and fuel production."

Tilman said he tries to look 20 to 30 years ahead as he thinks about the
developing bioeconomy. The world's population will climb toward 9 billion
over that period and he said researchers need to look beyond corn fields to
find sustainable ways to meet all the food and fuel needs of that
population.

In his long-term view, "We'll be using corn for food again."

Two other speakers will address the technologies that should be used to
convert biomass into fuels and other products. Charles Wyman, the Ford Motor
Company Chair and professor of chemical and environmental engineering at the
University of California, Riverside, will argue for the biological
conversion of biomass into fuels and other products. John Regalbuto, a
professor of chemical engineering at the University of Illinois at Chicago,
will argue for the thermochemical conversion of biomass.

Two others will address how a bioeconomy could affect global climate
change. Stephen Long, a professor of crop sciences at the University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and deputy director of the Energy Biosciences
Institute, will argue that biofuels can help mitigate global climate change.
Timothy Searchinger, a visiting research scholar at Princeton University's
Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, will argue that
biofuel production causes land use changes that increase greenhouse gas
emissions.

The remainder of the conference will feature technology tours and
breakout sessions covering scientific, economic, social and policy issues
related to a bioeconomy. A complete schedule is here.